


Another First Kiss

by Jo (jmathieson)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Not Canon Compliant, Phil Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:31:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmathieson/pseuds/Jo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gets hurt, Phil gets scared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another First Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mikey (mikes_grrl)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikes_grrl/gifts).



"The MRI shows that the damage is minimal and localized, but we won't know more until the swelling goes down completely, and, of course, until he wakes up." 

Phil Coulson looked at the MRI display on the computer screen as if he could interpret the shades of green and yellow himself.

"When will he wake up?"

"We're keeping him under sedation for now, even with the concussion, it's safer for him to be unconscious while the intra-cranial pressure stabilizes. Probably another 12 hours, and then we'll withdraw the drugs and hope he wakes up on his own. We're monitoring him closely, of course."

Phil heard the word 'hope' and understood, finally how very serious Clint Barton's condition was. They'd all seen him fall; a pterodactyl-like creature had knocked him off his perch and no one had been able to get there fast enough to catch him. Phil had seen him twisting in the air, trying to get off a shot with a grappling arrow to save himself, but he didn't have enough time, the concrete sidewalk hit him just as the arrow found its mark.

"Can I see him?"

"Of course, you can sit with him as long as you like." Doctor Sanchez had been with SHIELD longer than Phil, and had treated them both more times than Phil could count. She had always let Phil sit by Clint's bedside, even before they had become close friends, before the day Clint had shyly asked Phil to be his medical proxy, before they had become... lovers, partners, boyfriends? Whatever the term was for what they were to each other now.

"Thank you, Doctor."

"Talk to him. You never know, it might help."

Phil nodded and pushed open the door to Clint's room. He pulled the chair over to the bed and sat down. Clint always looked so much younger when he was lying in a hospital bed. More vulnerable. Phil reached for Clint's hand and covered it gently with his own.

"Clint, I'm here. You fell, and hit your head, but you're in Medical now, and you're going to be fine. The doctors want you to sleep for a while longer, so I'll just sit here with you."

It was sitting at Clint's bedside in Medical, four or more years ago, that Phil had first realized he was in love with Clint Barton. Clint had broken his leg in a few places and the doctors had knocked him out to set it and put pins in. Phil had been sitting here, in a chair just like this one, waiting for him to wake up. He'd desperately wanted to hold Clint's hand, then, and didn't understand why. He cared for other agents he worked with, Jasper, Natasha, a few others, and he always felt protective of his team, but only with Clint did he feel this desperate urge to touch, to hold, to stroke. To comfort and reassure and be there. To be more. To be everything.

And then Clint had woken up, and turned his head, and seeing Phil by his bedside, given him the brightest, warmest smile. It had made Phil's heart jump into his throat, and he had realized that what he felt was love. Not just caring, not camaraderie and brotherhood - he knew those well - but hearts and flowers and 'I want to spend my life with you' love. 

He hadn't said anything, of course. He'd buried it, completely certain that Clint could never share his feelings, that the bright, beautiful, young man could never be interested in his balding, middle-aged handler. 

And then the Tesseract, and the Chitauri, and Loki. Phil had died, and then been given a second lease on life. He had woken, one night, to a noise in his hospital room: the noise of Clint dropping (almost) soundlessly out of the vents. 

"So it's true then, you're really alive," Clint had said, staring from three feet away. Phil's need to touch had overwhelmed his better judgment, and he'd lifted a hand off the bed, towards Clint. Clint was by his side in an instant, cradling the hand in both of his.

"I... I thought I'd lost you," Clint had whispered, and the emotion Phil saw in his eyes had given him the courage to (three months later when he was up and about) take the chance, and ask Clint out to dinner.

Clint's hand lay warm and still under Phil's, now, as the monitors beeped reassuringly. The fear that had been gnawing at his gut since he saw Clint fall hadn't been tamed by the doctor's words, if anything, it was worse. Just the words "brain damage" were enough to turn the fear into terror. Physical injury was one thing, but Clint had already suffered through enough mental trauma for more than one lifetime.

Natasha found him six hours later, asleep with his head pillowed on the edge of Clint's bed, and had tried to send him home to sleep and shower. 

"I'll stay with him."

"I can't. I need to be here when he wakes up." And Natasha knew him well enough to hear the unspoken, "I need to know."

So she brought him coffee and a Danish and then sat with him until morning.

Dr. Sanchez came into the room, looked at the monitors and the charts for a few minutes, and then did something to one of Clint's IV lines.

"He should wake up within the next couple of hours. It's best if someone is with him when he does, someone he knows, because the concussion could cause disorientation or confusion."

"We'll be here," Natasha said, and Phil just nodded. Phil was glad Natasha didn't say anything reassuring. They didn't know. Couldn't know, until Clint woke up...

Which half an hour later, he did. He started to mumble and thrash a little, and Phil and Natasha went to his bedside. Natasha hit the call button just as Clint's eyes flickered open. For an instant, Phil was gripped with an irrational fear that they'd be glowing blue, like in the video images he'd seen of the attack on the Helicarrier, but they were his usual gray-green, slightly unfocussed.

Phil held his breath as Clint's eyes found his face, and the tightness in his gut loosened when Clint smiled his bright, warm smile.

"Phil."

"How are you feeling, Clint?" Nat asked from the other side of the bed, and Clint's eyes swam towards her for a minute before going back to Phil. 

"Like I got hit by a truck. What happened?"

All three of them had been knocked out enough times to know that it wasn't unusual to not remember the circumstances of an injury.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Uh... Tony was trying to convince me to move into his tower. We were talking about setting up an archery range. He was babbling on about computer-controlled moving targets. Did we get called out or something?" 

Phil and Nat glanced briefly at each other and carefully schooled their faces. Clint had moved into Stark Tower almost a year ago.

Dr. Sanchez coming into the room didn't distract Clint enough for him to miss the slight tension in his team-mates. 

"What is it? What am I not remembering, guys? It's not something with Loki again, please tell me..."

"No." Phil resisted the urge to take Clint's hand, "Nothing with Loki. It's just that, the discussion you're talking about, with Tony, it happened almost a year ago."

"I've been unconscious for - "

"No," Dr. Sanchez interrupted this time. "You've only been unconscious for 12 hours. You sustained a serious blow to the head and you have a concussion. It sounds like you're suffering from retrograde amnesia. That's not at all uncommon with this type of injury. Your memory of the events of the past year should come back."

"Should?" Phil looked sharply up at Dr. Sanchez.

"The human brain is a complicated organ. There is a chance he won't regain his memories of the past year."

Phil reeled, trying to process the implications of what Dr. Sanchez was saying. Clint didn't remember that they were... together, and might never. Might never remember Phil's stammering question, their first date, their first kiss, their first...

Phil looked up at Nat, a plea in his eyes, and then back at Clint.

"We're going to let you get some rest now, OK? We'll be back later."

"Sure. Sure. Thanks for being here." Clint's fingers twitched on the bed, and Phil again had to fight the impulse to grasp his hand. 

Phil wanted to lean on the wall outside Clint's room, but he couldn't, not with Natasha fixing him with a piercing glare.

"He doesn't remember that we're..."

"He will."

"You don't know that. He might not."

"I know how he feels about you. I know how you feel about him. That is what's important."

Phil wasn't convinced. 

"I'm going to go catch up on the paperwork that's bound to be piled up in my office."

Natasha knew when a man was running away from something that scared him, but she wasn't going to press the matter. It was for Phil and Clint to work out. Mostly.

"Don't you dare do anything to hurt him."

"Natasha. I would never."

"See that you don't," she said, and turned on her heel.

Phil went to his office and sat, staring unseeing at the piles of paper in front of him. Not that there was actually that much for him to do. His 'temporary' assignment of SHIELD liaison to The Avengers was fine while he was still recovering from open-heart surgery, but now... The Avengers didn't write after-mission reports. They didn't go on painstakingly planned operations; they were called out to respond to emergencies. And when they did assemble, Captain Rogers took care of most of the tactical coordination on the ground. Phil's 'job' of late had been to sit in the van and watch the action on a video screen. 

It made him feel... superfluous. He was back in shape now, or as close to it as he was likely to get, and he wanted to be doing something useful. It had become increasingly clear that he could never do that with The Avengers. As much as they continued to insist that he was part of the team, there was no way he measured up, not to any of them. 

He had, in fact, asked Nick Fury for his old job back a few weeks ago, expecting his old friend to smile and say, 'Sure thing, Cheese." Instead, Nick had handed him a folder and said,

"I was thinking you might be up for a new challenge."

The proposal for a new team that Fury had given him was tempting. It was the type of work he had joined SHIELD to do in the first place. The type of work he had done helping to track down Captain America's plane in the ice. The type of work he had done investigating Thor's hammer. The type of work he loved.

Except that it would take him away from Clint. For weeks at a time. His stomach hurt just thinking about it. After so many years alone, he finally had the man he loved in his arms every night, and he wasn't sure he could give that up. Which was part of the reason he hadn't told Clint about Fury's proposal, yet. 

The other part was that he had been afraid Clint would be all for it... After all, Phil was still just his balding, middle-aged ex-handler. Older and balder now than he had been a year ago. A year ago they'd gotten together during the very emotional repercussions of Clint being mind-controlled by Loki and Phil dying. Now? If he was being completely honest with himself, he had never really understood what Clint saw in him.

Maybe it was better this way, Phil thought. If Clint remembered them as just friends, he could take the assignment Fury had handed him. He could stop feeling so useless. But Clint... he loved Clint, but if Clint didn't remember... them. It hurt. But maybe it was better this hurt now, only his to bear, than putting them both through a bitter break-up when Clint finally came to his senses and realized that Phil wasn't his heart's desire after all. How could he possibly be?

Phil was startled out of his brooding hours later by a knock on his office door. It was Natasha.

"He's asking for you."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. I didn’t tell him anything. That's up to you, but if you ask me I think you should."

"No, if he doesn't remember..."

"Phil, it was a bang on the head. He's scared and confused and he's asking for you. He needs you."

Phil sighed and pushed himself out of his chair and headed for Medical.

When he went through the door of Clint's room, Clint turned his head and smiled that same, bright, warm, open smile that was reserved for Phil and Phil alone. Phil's heart clenched.

"Hi, how are you feeling?"

"Foggy, which totally sucks. Thanks for coming."

"Natasha said you wanted to talk to me."

"Yeah, yeah... I... Come here?"

Phil had been standing half-way between the door and the bed, but now he moved closer. He saw Clint's hand twitching on the bed as he did - maybe his body remembered things his mind didn't? Phil thought of Natasha's words, and moved in close, standing right next to Clint's side and leaning in a little.

"Natasha said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah, she... she told me about some stuff that happened that I don't remember. But there were some things I asked about that she wouldn't tell me, things she said I'd have to ask you. What are we to each other, Phil?"

Clint's eyes were clear now, open and trusting. Trusting Phil not to lie to him, to give him the answers he needed.

"Why... why do you ask?" 

"I know we're friends. I know we're close. I remember finding your hospital room when you were still recovering from Loki's spear. I remember holding your hand, and it feeling really, really good. Not just good, but right. I don’t remember the things that have happened in the past year, but I think I remember feelings. Feelings about you. I think I remember the feel of your lips against mine. Of your skin, warm and soft. Of you touching me. Of us... together. Am I just remembering my fantasies, Phil?"

"No." Phil looked into Clint's eyes and wondered how he could have ever considered giving this up, walking away from those eyes, from that smile, from the warmth of... Phil covered Clint's hand with his, and Clint laced their fingers together in a tight grip.

"No, what you're remembering is real, Clint. We... we started dating last year. I asked you to dinner the day I got out of Medical, and we've been, ah... together ever since."

"Why didn't you tell me when I woke up?"

"I was afraid."

"Of what?"

"That you wouldn't want me, now."

"Why the hell not? I've been in love with you for years, Phil. Years."

"I know. I just thought... I'm not getting any younger, Clint."

"In case you hadn't noticed, neither am I. I don't care, Phil. You know that. What's really going on?" As usual, Clint's keen eyes saw what wasn't obvious.

"I've never felt so useless as I did watching you fall off that roof from the van. When the Avengers assemble, I can't do anything, Clint. I can't do anything except watch, and I'm not sure I can keep doing that." 

"I get that, Phil. I do. But running away from us isn't the way to solve that."

"I know, I'm sorry, Clint. I'm sorry. I got scared."

"S'okay. Come here." Clint raised his other hand, trailing an IV, and Phil leaned in closer. Clint's warm hand found the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

It was like their first kiss, almost a year ago. They had gone out to dinner, and Phil had felt awkward and nervous the entire time. At the end of their 'date' Phil had dropped Clint off at his apartment, and was just launching into a speech about how this was obviously all a mistake, and they could go back to being friends, just like before, nothing had to change... when Clint had pulled him into a kiss. It had been so soft and gentle and tender. Completely unlike the Clint 'Hawkeye' Barton that everyone else knew; this was the Clint who was giving Phil his heart.

This kiss, their second 'first kiss,' was almost exactly the same. Gentle and tender, loving and warm. Phil pulled back and smiled at Clint, who smiled back.

"That was nice," Clint said, still smiling.

"Yes. It gets better than nice," Phil said with a very small grin.

"Oh, good. Something to look forward to when I don't have a splitting headache."

"Yes. Clint?"

"Yeah?"

"Something else you should know. You've been trying to talk me into moving into the tower with you for the past few weeks."

"Have I?"

"You have. I'm planning to say 'Yes,' just as soon as you're out of Medical." 

"Good. That sounds really good. So, tell me about our first date..."


End file.
